Minister announces creation of WG to regulate workers by apps

The Minister of Labor, Luiz Marinho, announced this Wednesday (18), the creation of a Working Group to regulate workers through applications. Despite the announcement, the minister asked the apps “not to be scared”.

“The proposal is to bring social protection to workers”, declared Marinho at an event at the Planalto Palace with the presence of the President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, for the installation of a discussion group on the new minimum wage policy. “There’s nothing wrong with valuing work and bringing social protection,” he said.

This Wednesday morning, the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, addressed the social security conditions of Uber drivers in Brazil with the company’s CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, during the World Economic Forum, in Davos. The executive, according to him, would have shown sensitivity to the subject, in particular, regarding the pension of these workers.

At the same time, Marinho also announced the creation, in 30 days, of a Working Group to value collective bargaining and strengthen unions. According to him, there will be an analysis of labor legislation. “Let’s visit one by one.”

Regarding labor measures, he said that “there is no ‘pen’, there is the construction of understandings”. “We are going to seek consensus to offer proposals to Parliament.”

President Lula stated that the government will look into measures to guarantee the rights of application workers. According to him, it is necessary “to put an end to this story that a worker by application is a micro-entrepreneur”.

“We are going to create a negotiation committee with the government, unions and businessmen, so that we can put an end to this story that a worker by application is a micro-entrepreneur. He discovers that he is not a micro-entrepreneur when he is injured, when he gets sick, there is no social security system to guarantee him in a moment of suffering. Instead of making (changes in labor legislation) by MP, we are going to build proposals together”, he said.

union structure

In a speech during the event, Lula also defended a reformulation of the union structure. For him, the economy has changed, and the centrals need to keep up with a world that is no longer similar to what it was in the 1980s. “Nobody wants to build the union structure as it was. has changed, that it is necessary to reinvent itself at the structural level.”

The president said that the centrals are not in favor of the return of the union tax, but they need to have the right to decide the value of the contribution to fund the functioning of the unions. “Taking away from the union the right to decide in a meeting to contribute to the union was a crime that they committed against you. (…) We do not want the worker to be an eternal moonlighter. We want the worker to have guaranteed rights, a social security system to protect them”, he defended.

In criticism of former president Jair Bolsonaro, Lula also said that the previous government created measures, such as Casa Verde and Amarela, which “were of no use”.

The President of the Republic also stated that he found the country “semi-destroyed”, which would not allow a sudden increase in dammed wages, and defended that the union “has to go to the workers”. “You are thirsty for democracy, for participation. We cannot do everything at once. We have this half-destroyed country. I hope that civil servants do not go on strike to receive 7 years without readjustment at once”, he joked.